Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own the Outsiders or profit from anything that S.E. Hinton writes besides the enjoyment of reading her work.

A/N: Thank you to all of those who reviewed or/and voted, Seth Clearwater, FrankElza, and Amanda. Here we go guys and girlies...

Ponyboy's POV

I think I fell asleep on the couch because next thing I knew Darry was standing over me feeling my forehead.

"You okay Ponyboy?" Darry asked concerned. "You feel a lot hotter than earlier." I nodded, but grabbed my head as the nodding irritated my sensitive, pounding head.

Darry left and came back with the annoying thermometer. When it beeped and Darry looked at it. His eyes widened.

"Almost 103, Ponyboy. I am going to ask you again, are you sure your feeling okay?" Darry asked me. I gave in, a little.

"I don't feel 100% but I'm okay." I tried but Darry shook his head.

"Your really hot. Go back to sleep, okay? You don't have school tomorrow." I agreed and fell asleep quickly.

X

When u woke up I was in my bed next to Soda.

He needs to sleep in his old room or else he will get sick too,I thought as I tried to get out of bed. My head gave a painful pounded in my ears so hard I gave up and laid back down.

My nose started to tickle so I shifted, muffling my sneeze into my shoulder, hoping not to wake up Sodapop. Luckily, he didn't even stir at the sudden loud noise.

I glanced at the clock, it was eight in the morning. I was glad I didn't have to go to school today because it was a Saturday. I was hoping that my cold would go away by Monday. What worries me was I wasn't sure if this was a cold because my lungs never burned like this and my head never felt like it was going to split open when I had just a cold.

I quickly started to get tired, but I tried to stay awake. My heavy eyelids eventually won out and I quickly slipped into peaceful darkness.

X

It was lunch time before I woke up again to Darry shaking me, actually pretty lightly for once in his life.

"I hate to wake you, Ponyboy, but you need to be able to sleep tonight and it's almost noon." He told me apologetically. I pushed myself out of bed and stumbled out to the couch. Two-Bit worriedly glanced me over for a moment.

"You look awful." He told me. I snorted.

"Thanks." I croaked, my voice basically gone.

One tip to survive Two-Bit; never loose your voice. I lost my voice when I was nine and he was thirteen and babysitting me. It was awful because he totally used it to his advantage to bug me. I really hoped I was able to keep what little was left of my voice or he wasn't the one that was going to be babysitting me today.

Luckily, Steve was covering for Sodapop and Two-Bit was headed to Bucks.

Darry and Two-Bit called out "Bye" to Soda and I as they left. I curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. Soda sat next to me, stroking my hair as I fell asleep on the couch, absolutely drained. I vaguely remembered Darry had told me earlier that I needed to stay awake, but sleep quickly overtook my aching and feverish body.

A/N: I'll take any suggestions for this story. Please review. Thanks guys!